Floyd Mayweather Dominates Shane Mosley… Survives “Tarver Punch”

I love talking about boxing and throughout the week I was on several radio shows as well doing my own prediction video. I also talked to so many boxing fans who would ask me what I thought about the fight and my answer in general went something like this:

“I think people are giving Shane too much credit for his victory over Antonio Margarito and he won’t be able to win a decision against Mayweather, but it is always possible he can hit him with the “Tarver Punch” and we don’t know how Floyd will react to that.”

Then I proceed to explain what the “Tarver Punch” is. It was the closed-eyed left hook that Antonio Tarver connected with on Roy Jones, Jr. that effectively ended Jones’ career before he hit the canvas.

With uber-talented fighters like Roy Jones, Jr. you never know how they will react when they get tested; Jones never recovered.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. took two right hands from Shane Mosley in the 2nd round of their fight that the majority of welterweights would have gone down from and never gotten up. The 2nd right hand “buckled” his knees and he was in serious trouble.

At that point Mayweather had a decision to make; was he going to be Roy Jones, Jr. or was he going to man up?

This is what separates a good fighter from a great fighter.

Starting from the 3rd round, Mayweather dominated almost every minute of every round for the remainder of the fight. The thing that made this particular fight so interesting is that Mayweather was the aggressor for all twelve rounds.

I’ve debunked the “fallacy” that Floyd is a “runner” in the ring, but tonight he was less defensive and more offensive-minded. For the majority of the fight he “stalked” Mosley and often was the first to attack with a sick jab that frequently snapped Mosley’s head back.

When Mosley did try to pressure Mayweather he was destroyed with counter right hands all night long that had him staggered (if not really hurt) in several rounds.

The knock on Floyd Mayweather is twofold.

People say that he doesn’t fight “prime” opponents and that he doesn’t fight in an “eye-pleasing” style.

Shane Mosley was ranked 3rd in the pound for pound rankings by many and a lot of people thought he was a tougher opponent for Mayweather than Manny Pacquiao, so you can’t question his choice of opponent – it was a much bigger challenge than say, Joshua Clottey. As far the fight itself, while Mayweather will never be Manny Pacquiao in regard to how he attacks, he did take the fight to Mosley and while it was one-sided it was fairly entertaining.

Speaking of Manny Pacquiao, now that Floyd and Pacman have disposed of their last opponents in easy fashion, it makes their potential megafight even bigger now.

We know the issue that caused the last fight to fall apart was “blood testing.” Both Mosley and Mayweather were subjected to Olympic-style drug testing and it didn’t seem to bother either one of them in the least bit, performance-wise.

There is no rule stating that Manny Pacquiao has to sumbit to Olympic-style drug testing, but he should just take the test. If he takes the tests, is clean, and beats Floyd Mayweather, Jr., he clears his reputation and becomes a bigger legend that he already is. We know that Mayweather is fighting legit and while there is no proof that Pacquiao isn’t, there are suspicions that he could clear up by agreeing to the tests.

This is the only fight anyone wants to see. No one wants to see Pacquiao vs. Magarito or Mayweather vs. Berto.